The Queen, on The Squirrelly: “He has a big nose. He must have gotten yours.”

There’s one reason why cloning will never catch on, right there: the inability to attribute undesirable attributes in your offspring to a mate.

Saturday we went to a reunion for all the parents who were in our childbirth education class. I met ten brand new babies and, bizarrely, was able to remember each and every one of their names. This is very unusual, as I have no head for names at all. In fact, I couldn’t remember the names of any of the parents at the party, and wound up calling them things like “Lucy’s father” and “genetic contributor to Sam.” So if you ever meet me in person and want to make sure I remember your name, try spitting up or pooping in your pants immediately after we shake hands — maybe that will help.

The highlight of the event was a group photo, where all the newborns were shoehorned into a couch and many a snapshot was taken.

The Squirrely is second from the left, showing off his tie-dyed socks and his preternatural ability to slouch.

It’s probably best that no one overheard me tell The Queen that it looked like “a dingo buffet.”

Wait–you can still make jokes like ‘dingo buffet’? Now that I’m a mom I lost my sense of humor about things like that. When I hear about well, just about everything–violence in the West Bank, Iraq, ‘accidental’ bombings, etc. I freak out about whether babies might have been involved. I could care about the rest of humanity but damnit anyone who hurts a baby…

I never saw the ‘dingo ate my baby’ movie and I guess now I never can. Aw shucks. Another great Meryl accent missed.

the two dingo-canapes on the back of the sofa whose heads didn’t make it in the shot look sort of pale and sickly…ripe for the pickin’. they sure have good balance though. the rest of those babies are just plain adorable.

Here’s the weird thing: That picture looks EXACTLY like the picture we have of OUR birthing class reunion. Same couch, same number of babies, same amount of slouch and lean. OK, I think my baby was cuter than any of them except of course the squirrely, but that’s the only difference.

By the way, I predict it will only take a few episodes of Total Diaper Failure before the couple with the white couch ditches it for something more … camoflauge-able.

I believe a true dingo buffet would have a higher content of aborigne.

Cute picture though.

This short caption came to mind after seeing the picture:
” So there we were huddled together, safety in numbers, that was our mantra. The assault on our senses was fast and blinding, explosion after explosion, of terrifying light followed by that insidious clicking sound. Our handlers had each betrayed our trust and deserted us to this white, lopsided perch.

All we had now was each other to lean on, quite literally.

The spots in my eyes had just began to fade as multiple larger creatures descended out of the flash induced blindness and whisked us away one by one.

Bob was the first to be taken. I’ll miss him.

If I survive to tell this tale, I will continue to look to the fuzzy place just past my range of focus, and thank providence.”

The group of all the newborns seems to be a tradition among birthing classes. We have the same shot from our class, and to be honest, its hard to tell the difference between the two photos. The domino effect is there, all of them either sleeping or grouchy, some muscling for position and others being tipped by some cosmic horizontal gravity.

that is such an awesome picture.
but my eyes keep gravitating to the poor thing on the arm of the couch. she’s going to fall!
my daughter has tumbled off the arm of the couch so many times this year that we refer to that side as “emeline’s concussion corner”.